


Head to Hand to Heart

by fathomfive



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Ougiminami, Pining, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 03:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20808047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathomfive/pseuds/fathomfive
Summary: As Ougiminami's newest captain, Towada is just starting to believe that he's the right guy for the job.  Sure, he's done some stupid things, let some people down - but he's stepping up now.  He's moving on.Moving on, that is, except for his big stupid crush on Akimiya Noboru.





	Head to Hand to Heart

The night before Ougiminami goes to the Inter-High, Akki gives a speech. He’s not very good at speeches; he always has this look on his face like he expects to find out any second now that the person everyone’s staring at is actually someone cooler and taller and smarter standing right behind him. But he gives it anyway.

Towada’s just finished taking down the nets, and he’s trying to glare Oyasu into helping him get them back into the closet. Oyasu, like usual, isn’t having any of it: his thing is sweeping super slowly so that no one can tell him to do anything else. So Towada bundles one of the nets into Yokote’s arms, and, well, if it unrolls and spills all over him in the process, that’s just a bonus.

“Fuck you,” Yokote says, mostly covered in net.

“Fuck _you_,” Towada says, but he waits until Yokote has the net mostly under control before he says, “Race you to the closet!” and takes off—he’s an athlete, he values fair play, et cetera. When they get back into the gym Akki is standing there with his arms spread.

“A minute of your time, guys,” he says. “Before we leave, there’s something I want to say.”

Someone snorts, because, really, _A minute of your time?_ What are they, office workers? Probably Tazawa—Towada swats him on the back of the head, just to be safe.

Tazawa grumbles and tries to get him back, but Towada ducks out of the way, flips him off, and then remembers they’re supposed to be giving the captain a, a_ minute of their time. _He grabs Moritake, who’s already drifting toward the door, and the others follow soon enough.

The captain doesn’t have a particularly commanding voice. In fact, Towada figures he can count the number of times Akki’s straight up told him to do something on the fingers of one hand. What he does do is—well, he just asks, and he smiles at you, like he really truly believes that because he said _please_ or _I think you should_ or _it would be great if_ then you will.

And these days, they pretty much do.

With the team gathered up, all looking at him, Akki jumps a little like he’s trying not to peek over his shoulder. He clears his throat. “We don’t have much time left,” he says. “You guys have worked hard for what we’re going to do soon. And I just want to say that no matter how it goes tomorrow, I know that. I’ve seen you. And I believe—”

Oyasu’s sneakers squeak on the floor as he loses ground in a silent jostling match with Yokote, who makes up for his height with deadly razor elbow technique. Towada grabs them both by the backs of their t-shirts and drags them apart, and by the time he turns back to Akki, their captain’s lost the thread and he’s just laughing, tired and goofy and lit up like the sun.

“I believe in you guys,” Akki says, although the way he snorts halfway through kind of ruins it. “I—I really do.”

“You mean us,” Towada blurts, because it feels really important all of a sudden even if it’s a lame as hell thing to say out loud. “Not ‘you guys.’ You believe in _us_.” There are mutters of agreement from either side of him.

Akki’s laughter peters out. There are dark circles under his eyes, and sweat drying on his cheekbones and in the hollow of his throat. But he looks earnest, like he always does; steady, like he always does. He gives them one of those big grins, like he’s never known doubt a day in his life. Towada’s heart starts going like it thinks he’s running drills again, which is weird, because they finished cooldowns fifteen minutes ago. It’s probably tournament nerves.

“Yeah,” Akki says. “I do.”

They lose to Shiratorizawa in the second round of the Inter-High preliminaries. Towada goes into that game scared to hell, not that he’d ever admit it. While Akki’s smiling through warmups, circling the court until he’s thumped every shoulder and looked into every set of eyes and told them they’ve got this one, that they’ll be fine, Towada watches Ushijima.

Ushijima is watching them too. Reading them, really, like they’re a short book with lots of pictures. He watches Oyasu spike and Yokote receive, and he watches Akki toss, and then he goes back to his stretches before Karamatsu even makes contact with the ball. And then Shiratorizawa rips fifty points off them like tearing the pages out of that book, hard and clean and fast.

After that, they get on the bus and ride back to school, not really saying anything to one another. Later Towada hears Akki crying in the locker room. He’s lingering just outside the door, and all he can see through the hand-wide gap is the line of Akki’s shoulders, shaking as he struggles for breath.

All of a sudden he’s so angry he can’t even _think_. His muscles are locked and his heart is pounding. He’s angry at—what? At himself? At Shiratorizawa? At the way Akki is bent double, like all the breath has been knocked out of him? He doesn’t know. Tears burn in the corners of his eyes.

Being scared sucked, but this is a hundred times worse.

Coach gives them the weekend off. When the two days are up, they come in about as loud as usual, because someone took Moritake’s new issue of JUMP and other than spiders and girls with bleached hair that’s the only thing that throws him off his rhythm. Akki’s already in the gym, talking to Coach.

“I can’t stay too long!” he says, somehow smiling exactly like usual. “But I wanted to drop in and say my goodbyes, and entrust everything to the new captain! You guys have done your vote, right?”

“I voted for me,” Oyasu says.

“I voted for Oyasu’s mom,” Tazawa says.

“It was you who took my JUMP, wasn’t it, Yokote,” Moritake says. “Tell me where it is and I’ll think about not squashing you even shorter.”

“Yeah, yeah, we voted,” Towada says. “Moritake, did you check inside your ass?”

“His head’s already up there, he would’ve noticed,” Yokote says. “Also, I want it on the record that I didn’t vote for myself.”

“You probably left it in the cafeteria again,” Akki says. “Uh, Coach, maybe it’s time to do the announcement?”

Coach Ninomiya has been watching this with his usual constipated expression. He’s a good guy but Towada heard he really wanted to be a baseball statistician or something, which would be better for his blood pressure. “Ah, yes,” he says, holding up his phone. “Everyone emailed me last night. I’m pleased to say that Towada-kun was the almost unanimous choice.”

“Almost?” Towada swings around to glare at Oyasu.

“Hey,” Oyasu says, putting his hands up. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think you were gonna win.”

“That makes no sense,” Towada says.

“Congratulations!” Akki says, and he’s smiling again, like this is the ideal outcome or something. “I know the team will be in good hands with you, Towada-kun!”

“Uh, yeah,” Towada says, and he can’t stop himself from running a nervous hand through his hair. Akki’s still smiling at him—waiting, probably, for him to smile back. He tries, but it comes out looking about as constipated as Coach. “Thanks. Thank you.”

“Man, you got this,” Yokote says, smacking him in between the shoulder blades. Moritake nods, and Karamatsu shoves Towada’s head to one side and screws up his hair, which is the only way he knows how to show affection. “I can’t wait to be in your capable hands,” Yokote goes on, with that shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “I feel so safe already, Towada-san. You’re gonna take _good_ care of us, right?”

“You can get me out of trouble with Suwa-sensei, right?” Tazawa says. Moritake’s hand lands heavily on Towada’s shoulder.

“Help a guy out, Captain,” he says, “and buy me a new JUMP.”

“I only take requests in writing,” Towada says, drawing himself up. “Get in line, assholes.”

Coach looks like he’s developed another one of those unhealthy tics in his forehead, but Akki just throws his head back and laughs.

He leaves not long after that. Towada spots him having a quiet conversation with Natsuse by the door, and then he’s gone and they’re back in the swing of practice, like they never left. Natsuse is a decent setter, if a little hasty, and just as importantly, his shit talk game is unparalleled. He seems a little unsteady today, though, like a new burden’s settled onto his shoulders.

Towada knows the feeling.

The heat climbs through the day, promising that summer will be on them in a couple of weeks. When they break for the day, Towada changes slowly and ambles back through the air-conditioned gym onto the breezeway that connects it to the main school building.

Akki is waiting for him out there. He pushes a Pocari Sweat in Towada’s direction. “Do you have a minute?” he says. “Let’s take a seat.”

So they sit on the bench in the breezeway, looking out over the field. Akki has his own bottle of tea, and once they sit, he pops the cap and takes a long drink, head tilted back to expose the line of his throat. Towada wipes his own sweating bottle on the hem of his shirt.

“You don’t have to give a speech,” he says. “If that’s what you were gonna do. This feels kind of like a speech moment.”

“Oh, you’re turning down my wisdom?” Akki says. He smiles, and Towada resists the urge to start bouncing his leg nervously. “Man, and here I was going to tell you about all my super secret captain techniques.”

“You for sure don’t have any secret captain techniques,” Towada says. “You have that one thing you do, and I already know I can’t do that one.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Akki says.

“You were doing it in there earlier,” Towada says, gesturing uselessly. “That thing, with your face. And your voice.” He puts on his biggest cheesy smile and claps his hands together. “Right, okay, we got this!” he says, all high-pitched and confident. “We’re okay! We’re all having a good time!”

Akki horks tea up his nose and starts laughing. “Do I really sound like that?” he splutters, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

“Nah,” Towada says. “You sound like you mean it. You always sound like you mean it. I guess that’s the super secret part.”

“You’re not supposed to pretend to be me anyway,” Akki says. “Unless Moritake-kun bets that you can’t do an impression, in which case you still shouldn’t because he’s going to make money. But that’s not the point, the point is for you to do what _you_ do.”

“Shit,” Towada says. “I know I voted for myself, but I should have voted for Oyasu’s mom. I don’t _have_ a thing that I do.”

There’s a long pause.

“You always do the smart thing,” Akki says finally. There’s something weird about his tone, careful, laying each word down like a stone in a foundation.

“That feels like a backhanded compliment,” Towada says.

“No, I mean—you think about everything,” Akki says. “And you only ever do what seems worth it to you. Even when it’s a stupid thing, you find a way to spin it into the smart thing. Kind of makes you impossible to argue with, but it means no one can get one over on you except yourself. I’ve always liked that about you, though.”

“Okay, definitely a backhanded compliment,” Towada says, to distract himself from the way his heart’s started galloping. _I’__ve__ always liked that about you_.

“If you insist,” Akki says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You always do the smartass thing, that’s what I mean.”

“See, there we go,” Towada grumbles, feeling warm all over. “Tell me what you really think, why don’t you.”

“I did!” Akki says. “Man, you totally weren’t listening when I said I liked it.”

It’s Towada’s turn to choke on his Pocari Sweat. It goes dribbling down the front of his shirt, and Akki startles and then starts laughing at him for real this time.

“I know this is important to you,” he says, when he’s calmed down. “This game, this team. This thing we have here. So it’s okay if you’re kind of a smartass about it, since you care deep down! And, you know, it’s okay to be scared.”

“Who said I’m scared,” Towada growls.

“I definitely didn’t!” Akki says, putting his hands up. “But if you were, it’d be okay. Normal, even.”

“And you said I’m the smartass,” Towada mutters.

“You think I wasn’t scared out of my mind sometimes?” Akki says. He drops his hands, clasps them in his lap. “A lot of the time? Maybe even like a high sixty percent of the time?”

“Shit,” Towada says. “We were that bad?”

“Not what I meant!” Akki yelps. “Mostly not what I meant. But the rest of it was—a little much. I think this was the first thing I’ve ever been in charge of, you know?”

“If you need to start seeing a therapist I support you, but you better not send me the bills,” Towada says.

“I had fun, you dick,” Akki says. His smile goes a little wobbly all of a sudden, and Towada’s brain gears grind to a screeching halt. “Even with all that, I had so much fun.”

“That’s. Good,” Towada says. “I—good.”

“So what I’m getting at,” Akki says quickly, “is that being scared—which no one said you were—doesn’t have to stop you from doing the thing you’re scared of. You can stay scared! You can kinda shit yourself every time you practice against someone way stronger than you, and you can take a risk on the court and feel like you’re gonna hurl right then and there, and you can dig in anyway and try to win! It’s okay. It’s _fine_. Just don’t let anything stop you from trying.”

“Wait, did you do that stuff,” Towada says.

“Doesn’t matter!” Akki says briskly. He sniffs loudly. Towada pretends not to notice. “Focus on the last part. You’re gonna do great.”

Towada’s throat is dry. Suddenly he’s really thirsty. He takes a huge swig from his bottle so it won’t look like he’s swallowing tears or something. “What the hell, man,” he says. “I thought you were just talking shit but you snuck one last speech in there. That’s low.”

“Well, I’m not the captain any more, am I?” Akki says. “I can be a little low.”

There are little figures moving far out on the field: the soccer team running drills. Evening’s coming, and the field is washed in orange light.

“You better come watch us in the Spring High,” Towada mutters. “I mean, Natsuse’ll probably cry if you don’t.”

Akki thumps his back, square between the shoulder blades, and leaves his hand there for a few seconds. “Depend on it,” he says.

But as it turns out, they see each other sooner than that. The first term break comes up quick, and Towada bombs Literature hard enough to get stuck with assigned tutoring sessions all through August. The team makes fun of him for it, but that’s mostly fine because Oyasu fails History and Tazawa flunks English. It’s only Yokote, with his freak mind for math, who has good enough grades to make it sting.

“Cheer up, maybe your tutor’s gonna be a hot college student,” he says, while they’re starting laps around the gym.

“I’m never that lucky,” Towada pants, pulling up short so he doesn’t run into Tazawa and Moritake as they start elbow jousting at the front of the pack. “It’s gonna be some nerd.”

“There’s such a thing as hot nerds, you know,” Yokote says. “Don’t be so narrow-minded.”

“If that’s a thing for you I don’t wanna know about it,” Towada says. Yokote tries to kick him in the ankle.

Tutoring sessions take place in the little study center attached to the school library. Towada’s sentence is two sessions per week until school resumes, and he shows up at the library feeling nervous and kind of stupid, because isn’t that what this means, that he’s kind of stupid? So he’s already pissed off about it, and not in the mood to talk to a stranger about boring books by boring dead people. He walks into what is helpfully called the Help Room, and—

“Oh! Towada-kun, are you here for tutoring?” Akki says.

Towada blinks. “Uh,” he says. “Yeah. Are you...here to tutor?”

“Good guess,” Akki says. “Have a seat. We’re gonna start with _I Am A Cat_.”

Towada groans. He’s not a fan of _I Am A Cat. _But when Akki asks him what he thinks about reading history from a different point of view, and he smiles expectantly like of _course_ Towada is going to think the question through and answer—well. It’s kind of hard not to. Granted, his answer is disjointed and has way too much swearing to fit in the little box on the quiz sheet. By the time he’s finished Akki has a line between his eyebrows that resembles Coach’s, but Towada tries. He keeps trying.

Akki is good at explaining things, which he already knew, and they make it through _I Am A Cat_ and onto the haiku section of the curriculum with minimal blood, sweat, or tears. Poetry is a little kinder to Towada’s attention span. They read about gingko leaves falling, bells ringing in the forest. Weeks pass. The days get long, burning orange into the evenings, and the heat lingers even after dusk.

One day Akki squints into Towada’s tired face for approximately five seconds longer than is comfortable, and then snaps his book shut and says, “Hey, you wanna do this outside?”

So they do, camped out beneath a tree behind the school. Cicada voices chorus all around them while Towada scratches notes and doodles in his school-owned textbook and Akki leans against the trunk, binder propped on his knees. Towada’s beating his head against the latest haiku, trying to get it to mean something other than what it says. The image at the center of the poem sticks in his mind: summer fireflies, reflected on a still river.

When he glances up, Akki’s watching him sidelong, through half-closed eyes. There’s a faint smile on his face.

Something balloons Towada’s chest. It’s a weird feeling—he’s not all here, still thinking about fireflies and Akki’s smile and cool water and the way Akki’s near hand dangles over his knee, fingers loosely curled.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” he says after a moment.

“Huh? No way,” Akki says. “Man, it’s so nice out that it makes the session feel twice as long, though.”

“Then let’s get popsicles once we’re done,” Towada says. “I think FamilyMart still has those weird salty plum ones you like.”

Akki perks up, which is what he wanted but also means he has to come up with something to say about the poem, and fast. “I’m in,” he says. “And they’re not weird, they’re good. You need a little salty to go with the sweet.”

“Whatever,” Towada says, and ducks back into his textbook.

After that, the only thing that drives them inside is a gray day, where clouds roll in over the horizon in the early afternoon. One moment the light is fading, the wind picking up, and then the sky splits and rain drops like a curtain from above.

“Crap,” Akki says, at the same time Towada barks, “Shit!” Rain filters down through the branches of the tree, coming faster and faster. It’s already falling so heavily that mist rises from the ground, turning the world soft and gray and distant. Towada holds his binder over his head, and Akki hunches over his books like that’s going to protect them.

“Run for it?” Towada says.

“Might as well,” Akki says. They plunge out from under the tree, into the haze of rain.

When they’re back inside, Akki’s stubborn cowlick is plastered to the top of his head, and Towada doesn’t even want to know what his own hair looks like. He catches himself trying to fix it, like Akki will care, like Akki will even notice.

“I think we’d better cut this one short for today,” Akki says, peeling part of his soaked shirt away from his stomach. “We can finish up with the short essay prompt next time.” He looks up just in time to see Towada grimace, and his own expression goes exasperated and knowing. “What are the odds you brought an umbrella?”

“Last I checked this wasn’t math tutoring,” Towada says.

“So, that’s a no,” Akki says. “Mine can probably fit both of us. Why don’t I walk you to the bus stop.”

“Thanks,” Towada says, and he means it.

Walking to the bus stop is like walking through a low cloud, the sounds of the streets all muffled and far away. But the parts of Towada’s skin that aren’t cold and clammy are way too warm because, yeah, they both fit under the umbrella, but just barely. Their shoulders are pressed together, and the umbrella keeps wobbling because Akki, at one hundred seventy centimeters, has to crank his arm up and keep it there so Towada can actually see where he’s putting his feet. The umbrella tips every time they round a corner, and rain spills off the edge into Towada’s ear.

Finally he peels Akki’s damp fingers off the handle and takes the umbrella himself. “Here, let me hold it,” he grumbles. “You’re gonna put my eye out.” Akki makes a face but lets him. It’s easier that way, holding his arm out just behind Akki’s back with the umbrella over them both. They fall into step together.

Summer break comes to an end. Towada doesn’t gain much of an appreciation for Meiji literature, but he manages to pick up his failing grade as the Spring High preliminaries get closer. But being team captain is a lot harder when classes are on, because school is where the problems are.

His least favorite problem is the captain of the baseball team, who has some kind of blood grudge against volleyball and everyone who plays it, probably because of that little inter-team scuffle last year that got all blown out of proportion. Towada doesn’t know what the big deal is, he really doesn’t. Anyone could have told the shortstop that Karamatsu is a pretty easygoing guy, right up until the point where you go for him and some kind of switch flips. As for everything that happened after that—well, they were backing up their teammate.

“Ah, Towada-kun,” says the captain of the baseball team, right before cutting him in the lunch line. “How was your break? Have fun bumping balls with your friends?”

“Ah, Nanase,” Towada says. “It was great, I almost forgot you existed.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that’s not my name,” the captain of the baseball team says.

“Huh? Sorry? Come again?” Towada says. “Hey, listen, didn’t you guys piss out of Koushien prelims in the third round again? Are you aiming for a lucky number or something?”

“That’s—I know for a _fact_ you guys didn’t even get close enough to sniff quarter-finals,” the captain of the baseball team says. “And honestly, you never will. Especially if one or two or possibly half of your teammates get arrested.”

Towada’s heart sinks as he realizes he’s not going to be able to fight this guy the way the fucker so richly deserves. Last year Coach Nino managed to look the other way a couple times, and Akki smoothed out a surprising number of other problems. But the captain of the volleyball team can’t get suspended for kicking the shit out of a classmate even if that would be, actually, a service to the student body as a whole. He’s just going to have to switch tactics. He reaches over and grabs the last three melonpan from the lunch line, making sure to dangle them temptingly on the way by.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” the captain of the baseball team says.

“Huh, sorry?” Towada says. “Come again?”

No one gets arrested, although Tazawa gets a week of detentions for miming his own graphic death while Suwa-sensei talks, which slows down the pace of practice. Towada gives him an earful when he gets back, but it’s not until he grabs Tazawa by the shoulders and says “Do you want to fucking win or not,” that Tazawa seems to get it.

When they head into the Spring High qualifiers, no one talks about nationals or even quarter-finals, because they all know Shiratorizawa is just sitting there waiting for the next poor crew to get tossed up at their feet like an offering. Towada thinks about that maybe too much. It occurs to him that he has only slightly more faith in them than the captain of the baseball team, and that’s—that’s not right at all.

Towada’s little brother, Shoujirou, has been coming to their games and even the occasional practice match—he’s in middle school and the volleyball bug just bit. He wasn’t there when Shiratorizawa stomped them out of the Inter-High, and Towada’s thankful for that.

Shoujirou can’t make it on the day they lose to Karasuno, either. Towada is _damn_ thankful for that, because they embarrass themselves to hell and back, and that’s before Akki shows up to deliver one of his patented super-upbeat verbal asskickings.

He’d thought Akki wasn’t going to be there, but he makes it for the second set. He’s a floor up from them, leaning over the rail and hollering at them in his captain voice that carries just as strong as it always did. Coach Nino looks embarrassed, the team looks embarrassed, Towada knows for sure he’s embarrassed—but it’s funny, too. Because Akki does what he’s spent the whole break doing: saying something simple, in a way that brings the truth out.

_Going all in—there’s nothing wrong with that at all!_

It’s hard to find a flaw in an argument like that. And right here and now, Towada doesn’t want to. Akimiya Noboru is a ridiculous optimist, and Towada would rather prove him right.

The second set doesn’t have much life left in it. But they make Karasuno fight for that last point, because, after all, isn’t that what they came here for?

Nobody cries or makes heartfelt declarations in the locker room, because most of them break out in hives over that kind of thing. But it doesn’t feel like they got their asses kicked. Or, okay, it does, but it’s not like that time with Shiratorizawa, when the court was too loud and the captain’s voice was breaking and Towada was so exhausted that the whole damn _point_ of it all just—disappeared from view. This time, the point is still ringing in their ears.

No one talks much on the way back to school, but that’s because they’re all thinking. There’s something in their eyes that says, _not done yet_. Karasuno showed them that there’s still so much further left to go, so much more that they could do.

Towada didn’t know losing could do that.

Before their next practice, Yokote corners him by the vending machine. There’s a stormcloud hanging over his head, and he’s squeezing his water bottle like it did him a personal wrong. “Hey,” he says. “You got some extra time today? I want to practice receiving off a block, like a real kill block. I think it’ll work best if you spike for me.”

“Yeah, sure,” Towada says. “What’s that face for? You eat something bad?”

“Mind your own business,” Yokote grumbles. The cap pops off his water bottle. It pings away and rolls under the vending machine. He mutters something Coach Nino would probably bench him for, and crouches down to retrieve it.

He’s down there for a while. It’s only when he’s spread-eagled on the ground, with his shoulder jammed up against the bottom row of buttons, that he admits defeat.

“Towada,” he says, “are you just gonna stand there.”

“I mean, you seem okay to me,” Towada says.

“What if a girl walks by!” Yokote hisses.

“That seems pretty likely,” Towada says.

“I’m gonna come to your house and smother you while you sleep,” Yokote says. He drops his forehead against the reinforced plastic, and the bottle on the other side falls over. His hair’s getting flattened against the vending machine and he still hasn’t moved, and Towada realizes something is actually wrong.

“You better not be stuck,” he says.

“I’m not stuck!” Yokote snaps. “I just—hell, man, I let Karasuno walk all over us. I can’t stop thinking about it. If I’d been a little faster I could have kept more of those blocked shots going. We could have hung in there.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Towada says. “You forget I was there too? I saw you, you did everything you could.”

Yokote plants his free hand on the ground and scoots out from under the vending machine. He doesn’t get up yet, just rocks back on his heels and squats there in the dry grass. “I’m supposed to be doing more than that,” he says.

They’re both quiet for a moment. “Look,” Towada says. “I know we didn’t bother electing a vice-captain because that’s a championship school thing, but—you know it’s basically you, right?”

“Libero can’t fill a captain spot,” Yokote says, looking up at him. “That’s against the rules.”

“Hah,” Towada says. “_Rules_.” He stretches a hand out and hauls Yokote to his feet. “It’s you for a reason,” he says. “You’re fine.”

Yokote makes a face, but it’s the kind he makes when he’s just realized he looks too happy and he doesn’t want anyone to see. Too late, though. Towada definitely saw. “So don’t go blaming yourself for not being, I don’t know, the Ushiwaka of liberos,” he says. “We got what we got, and we’re good that way.”

“The Ushiwaka of liberos? You realize that makes zero sense, right?” Yokote says. “Even less than zero sense, it makes negative sense.”

“Negative sense is still sense,” Towada shoots back. “Keep your number theory away from me, nerd.”

“I don’t know why I’m friends with you,” Yokote says. “Get my cap back for me, will you?”

“First admit your arm is too short,” Towada says.

“Get down there,” Yokote snarls.

“Okay, okay,” Towada says. He gets down on the ground and starts feeling around under the vending machine, and that’s when the girls walk by. There are two of them and they’re very, very pretty.

“Oh,” one of them says. “Is it out of order?”

“Yes,” Towada says, and the same time Yokote says “No!” Towada jolts and bangs his forehead against the plastic, and another bottle falls over.

One of the girls makes a face like she’s just stepped in something. The other one is trying really hard not to smirk, and failing.

“Maybe we’ll come back later,” the first girl says.

“Yeah,” Towada says to the vending machine. “That would probably be best.”

When they’re gone, he gets up off the ground, dusts himself off, and gives Yokote his bottle cap.

“Thanks,” Yokote says. “I—thanks, man.”

“Don’t mention it,” Towada says.

The end of second term comes rushing up fast, and Towada’s grade takes a nosedive again when they hit the postwar poetry unit. One day in November, he slinks down to the library after the last bell, with an armful of poem printouts and a deeply embarrassing essay outline.

He goes up to the librarian at the desk, who wheels her wheely chair back a little bit.

“Akimiya-kun,” Towada says. “Is he in.”

“Oh, he—yes, he’s just finishing up with someone,” the librarian says. “What’s your business with him?”

That strikes Towada as unnecessarily confrontational. He starts glaring, and then realizes he’s glaring and tries to smooth his expression out. “I have poetry problems,” he says.

“Ah,” the librarian says. “Of course.”

Towada plants himself in one of the plastic bucket chairs across from the desk. He gets one day a week off practice, and by the time the next one rolls around, he might have thought better of this whole thing. Swallowing his pride has never been one of his skills. Voices and a brief, familiar laugh drift through the door to the Help Room.

A kid he doesn’t know, probably a first-year, comes out first, and Akki follows a minute later. When he sees Towada, he smiles real big, like a light just flicked on inside him. “Hey, Towada-kun!” he says. “Didn’t think I’d see you here!” Then his mouth slants and he fixes Towada with a stare too keen for comfort. “You’re failing again, huh?”

“Way to jump to conclusions,” Towada growls. “But also, yeah.” Akki doesn’t flinch like he used to, just rolls his eyes a little and comes over. He drops into the seat right next to Towada’s, close enough that their knees touch. “I could use a little help,” Towada says.

“And you came to me? I don’t know how much I can do, but I’m flattered,” Akki says.

“Yeah well, jury’s out on whether any of my other friends can even read,” Towada grunts. “It’s you or nothing.”

“Aah, don’t underestimate that bunch,” Akki says. He leans in to read the papers on Towada’s lap. The two of them are pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. “They’ve got a weird kind of genius going on. Sometimes.”

“Believe me,” Towada says with a snort, “I know _that_. But it’s the bad kind of genius.”

“Wasn’t arguing,” Akki murmurs wryly. He runs his finger down the first page of the outline. Towada can feel the slight pressure through the stack of papers, trailing lightly down his thigh. He sits very, very still. “I can see some spots where you could stand to untangle your thoughts a little,” Akki says. “We can go over the whole thing if you want, but it might take some time.”

_Everything_ feels tangled, all of a sudden. Towada’s head and heart and guts, all tied up in knots. He wants to get up and leave, _right now_. He wants to get closer. Instead he swipes the papers out from under Akki’s hand and pretends to be very interested in the contents. The words all dance around on the page.

“You free right now?” he says, mostly into the papers. “No reason to stay here if we don’t have to.”

“Oh, really?” Akki says. He makes a show of glancing around the library: wall-to-wall brown carpet, up-high prison windows, the poster of the studious student that reminds everybody to Always Do Your Best! “Why not?”

“Come to my house,” Towada blurts. “If you’re gonna be helping me, the least I can do is let you eat my brother’s snacks.”

“That’s pretty much the definition of the least you can do,” Akki says, but he’s smiling. He checks the time on his phone, and stands up abruptly. Towada starts missing the pressure against his shoulder right away. “You’re only two or three bus stops away, right? I have time.”

So they ride the bus to Towada’s house, and hole up in his room to work on the outline for Towada’s term-final essay. It’s slow going—Towada’s nervy and distracted for some damn reason, and even when he can wrap his head around poetry analysis, that doesn’t make it _interesting_.

What his brain finds interesting today is Akki’s hands: pointing and scribbling, poking and erasing, skimming over Towada’s notes like he’s feeling for the shape of the ideas there. He stopped taping his fingers a while ago. While Akki’s paging through a textbook in search of some citation, Towada’s mind reels back over weeks and months, to one of their last practice matches before the Inter-High.

He’d been sitting on the locker room bench, checking his phone while the others finished changing and started to filter out into the warm evening. Akki sat next to him, facing the other way, and Towada looked up when he made a little noise of frustration in the back of his throat.

Akki was trying to retape the fingers of his right hand, but the angle was wrong and his mouth was set in frustration as he tried to get the edge of the tape unstuck from the roll. They’d lost pretty badly against the visiting team that day.

“Hey,” Towada said, reaching out automatically. “Jeez, let me.”

“Oh—thanks,” Akki said, letting him take the tape. “Sorry. Thought I had it.”

“It’s fine,” Towada said. He ripped off the part of the tape that was all bunched up and stuck to itself, and picked up the edge of a new piece. He took Akki’s hand.

Akki’s hands were smaller than his, slender but strong, with long fingers. His knuckles were a little swollen, and there was a smudge of black pen where he’d written something on his wrist and then washed it off. Towada wrapped his pointer and middle fingers carefully, and then the middle and ring fingers of his other hand. Akki held very still.

There were times and places where anything you said sounded stupid and too loud, so Towada didn’t speak. He just finished up with the tape, and Akki kept sitting there with his hands out, until the sound of a car outside startled both of them out of silence.

“Thanks,” Akki said, flexing his fingers experimentally. “You did a good job.”

Towada scoffed. “‘Course I did,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“So you always tell me,” Akki had said.

Towada hasn’t thought about that in ages. Probably the one good thing about Akki not playing volleyball any more is that he’s out of ways to overdo it and fuck his hands up, unless he takes up knife throwing in his spare time. He puts his pencil down and shoves his notebook aside.

“I’m starving,” he says. “You starving?”

“Trying to get out of this?” Akki says. “You’re the one who asked, you know.”

“I’m talking about refueling,” Towada says. “You know how many calories the brain burns?”

“If you do, I’ll be surprised,” Akki says. But when Towada gets up, he follows.

They start back downstairs, and Shoujirou clatters into the house while they’re still halfway up the stairs. The backpack hits the floor, the fridge creaks open—

“You better not be finishing the pudding, twig boy,” Towada hollers. He takes the rest of the steps two at a time and bounds into the kitchen to rub the top of Shoujirou’s head, which is a lot less further away these days. The kid perks up when Akki peeks into the kitchen.

“Oh!” he says. “It’s Captain Akki-kun! I mean, Akimiya-san! Hi!”

“Hey, I used to see you at our games, didn’t I?” Akki says, and offers Shoujirou the politest fist bump Towada’s ever seen. “Just Akki is fine.”

“Are you still playing? Will you toss for me? We have a net in the back yard, it’s kinda short but my dad says next year we can get a real league size one, I’m gonna be a hundred sixty-five centimeters by then probably—”

“A hundred sixty-five centimeters? That’s pretty good!” Akki says. “Are you on your middle school team?”

Shoujirou’s whole face lights up, which is a feat considering it was pretty well illuminated before. “I’m a wing spiker,” he says. “Just like aniki! He tosses for me sometimes but you’re the real thing, and he said a good spiker can hit lots of people’s different tosses!”

“Oh, he said that?” Akki says, grinning. “Your brother’s a smart guy.”

“No he’s not,” Shoujirou says promptly, grinning back.

“You’re right,” Akki stage-whispers. “I just said that to be nice.”

And just like that, he’s the kid’s new favorite person. Shoujirou drags them both out back to the net, where Towada puts the ball in play and Akki tosses—a soft set, lower than he’d give to a high schooler, but he’s smiling the whole time. Shoujirou smacks it into the grass and hoots victoriously, and Towada lobs it into the air again.

They go until dusk starts to hit, and Towada scoots Shoujirou inside to start his homework. It takes peeling his fingers off the volleyball, like usual, but he goes. “And don’t forget your science project, I know that thing’s due at the end of the week,” he calls.

“I knoooow okay, you don’t have to remind me every day!”

“Yeah I do!” Towada squints in the window until he’s sure Shoujirou’s got his ass down at the dining room table, and then he scoops up the discarded ball. When he turns around Akki’s looking at him in the purple evening light. He’s not really smiling any more. Just watching him, with this clear, thoughtful look.

“What?” Towada says.

Akki jumps, and runs a hand through his hair. “Man, I thought we could tire him out,” he says sheepishly. “But he’s your brother, so I guess that’s out of the question.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Towada grunts.

“Perpetual trouble machine,” Akki says, sly, and ducks when Towada fakes chucking the ball at his head. He comes back up looking way too pleased with himself, and Towada tosses the ball to him for real. He spins it between his fingers. “He really looks up to you, huh,” he says.

“I guess?” Towada says. “I mean, he better not try and be too much like me. But I was definitely a hyper little shit at that age.”

“I think if he’s even a little like you, he’ll do just fine,” Akki says. There’s that couple of seconds where his brain catches up with his mouth, and then he turns red and tosses the ball at Towada. It’s a little too fast, and it smacks into Towada’s chest. He holds it there in front of him.

It’s right on the line between light and dark now—night’s falling faster than he expected.

“Nah,” Towada says, his mouth dry all of a sudden. “Last time we were on the court together, I let you down. I’m sorry.”

Akki’s mouth works. He smiles, one of those big smiles that squeeze his eyes almost shut. “That’s all in the past!” he says. “It was a while ago, I don’t really—“

“Man, don’t do that,” Towada says. “You don’t have to do that.”

Akki looks down for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “Sorry.”

“And don’t apologize to me while I’m trying to apologize to you,” Towada snaps. “I meant what I said.”

Akki shuts his eyes for a second, and when he opens them he looks rueful and kind of tired, none of the teeth-clenched intensity Towada’s only seen from him in fleeting moments. “Sure, maybe,” he says. “There were things all of us could have done differently. And I—look, I’ll be honest with you, after that match I thought a lot of pretty harsh things about me, about you, about Ushiwaka even. I was pissed. I knew we could do more.”

He walks up, his pale face and white shirt floating in the haze of dusk, closer than Towada expects or can really process right this second. He plants both hands on the other side of the ball Towada’s holding against his chest. His little finger overlaps with Towada’s for just a moment.

“So it means a lot to hear you say that,” he says. His mouth is quirked like he’s either going to cry or start laughing at himself. “But that doesn’t mean I blamed you. I never blamed you. Okay?”

His upper lip twitches. He’s definitely trying not to cry. So how the hell did they get to the point where Towada is the one being comforted here? Because that’s what Akki’s trying to do, right, with the standing so close and the quiet earnest voice, looking up at Towada like he means what he says, so completely—

It’s dark out now. It’s night. Light spills onto the lawn and Towada takes a deep breath and feels his heart pound.

He doesn’t _feel_ comforted. He feels like he would march into fucking battle against anything that made Akki make the face he’s making right now, brittle and earnest and completely uncool, which is awful because right now that anything is him.

“Okay,” Towada says. His voice seems to have stopped working; it comes out like sandpaper. “Uh. Thanks.”

“Huh?” Akki blinks, looking genuinely confused (and thankfully a couple steps further from doing something absolutely lethal like bursting into tears). “I’m the one who should be thanking you,” he says as he steps back.

Neither of them is holding onto the ball tight enough. It drops to the ground and goes rolling off toward the steps, and Towada breaks to chase after it. And then they go back inside, and Akki gets his bag, and walks off down the darkened street toward the bus stop.

Towada stands at the window, and watches him pass through the halo of a streetlight and disappear.

All that and it still takes him until one thirty-three in the morning to have the realization. He’s flat on his back in bed, feeling his heart go thump and his chest constrict while his brain’s action replay forces him to live through that conversation another fifty times. It seems to be stuck in high focus on Akki’s face—upturned, catching the light from the high window. His mouth, the furrow of his brow, whatever the hell it was in that _Okay?_ that made Towada’s heart start searching for a cliff to dive off of. His hands, close enough to touch.

All of him, in fact, close enough to touch. Towada drags a hand down his face. “Shit,” he mutters, and rolls over in case he decides he wants to smother himself with his pillow. “Shit, shit, fucking shit.”

At practice a week later, Towada jumps from the back line, tosses the ball into the air, and sees Akki hanging over the rail on the upper landing. His drive serve goes wild, winging off to the left side of the court and bouncing into a ball carriage.

“Home_ ru__u__un_!” Oyasu intones, hands cupped around his mouth. “But he’s not running for the bases, he’s just standing there like an idiot—we may need a medic on the field—”

“_You’re_ gonna need a medic in just a second,” Towada snarls.

“After that performance, I don’t think you can hit me,” Oyasu says.

“I will dislocate your jaw with a volleyball,” Towada says. “And then it’ll be quiet. So quiet.”

“Try again,” Yokote calls from the other side of the net, where he’s waiting to receive Towada’s jump serve—if he ever gets it right. “That one wasn’t so bad. Until, you know, the complete failure part.”

Towada’s about to retort, with what he’s not sure yet, but Natsuse looks up and tucks the ball he’s holding under one arm so he can wave. “Akimiya-senpai! Long time no see!”

Akki leans over the railing and waves back. He’s still in his school uniform. “Hey!” he says. “Don’t let me distract you guys, I just thought I’d drop by for a little while.”

“If you’re that bored, come down and join us,” Towada says, because, contrary to what Akki told him after the Inter-High, he’s never done the smart thing in his life. He really can’t imagine anything dumber he could do. Because he has no damn idea how to act around Akki now that he’s—now that he’s hung up on him like this.

Now that he’s realized what it is he’s feeling, that is. He’s starting to realize that he’s been hung up on Akki for a _while_.

“If you have the time, I’d really appreciate some pointers,” Natsuse says. Which is good, he’s shit at asking for help from the team. Towada is a little worried that he’s trying to act tough, to fit in, but that’s the wrong way to do it.

“Might as well, Akki-kun,” Yokote calls. “They’re playing nice, but these guys aren’t about to let you leave.”

Akki grins, big and bright. “I don’t have that long,” he says. “But you guys are so courteous, how can I refuse?”

He ditches his jacket, tie, and buttondown on the landing, and comes down in slacks and a t-shirt. He dishes out the usual: fist bump for Yokote, back pats for the blocker crew, salute for Karamatsu and the rest of the hitters, and this weird complicated handshake with Natsuse that goes on for almost a full minute. And for Towada—

Their eyes catch. Towada feels something in his chest go _zing. _Akki’s habitual smile seems to take a little longer to show up.

Akki grips Towada’s shoulder, tight. He rocks him a little and lets go. “Hey, Towada-kun,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” Towada says.

By the end of practice Towada has fucked up his jump serve so many times it’s a new record, and Yokote is staring daggers at him from the other side of the net. Watching him wipe out on the sidelines as he chased after the ball was only funny the first couple times. Now Towada’s just worried that Yokote is going to come over and kick his knees in.

“What’s with you today?” Yokote says, while they’re taking down the nets. “I could have sworn you knew how to play volleyball.”

“Huh? Watch it,” Towada says, poking him in the ribs with the net antenna. “Just an off day.”

“That’s all it is?” Yokote is eyeing him with a look of actual concern. Towada regrets making him unofficial vice-captain.

“That’s all,” he says. And then: “Hey, Oyasu! No way it takes you that long to sweep, hurry your ass up!”

“I’m being thorough,” Oyasu drawls, leaning on the broom.

“You’re not even _moving_,” Towada hollers.

Yokote sighs. “I’ll take care of him,” he says, and Towada has about half a second to be touched and surprised by that before Yokote tosses the net he’s holding into Towada’s arms. It comes unrolled and flops over Towada’s shoulder, slithers down his back, and gets tangled around his feet. Yokote beams and hands him the other antenna.

“Yeah, you’re funny,” Towada mutters, watching him march off to kick Oyasu’s ass into gear. Shit, he has good friends.

Akki stays to help with cleanup, because he’s ridiculous, and Towada doesn’t see much of him until they’re all heading to the locker room. He’s perched on the bench in the breezeway again, shoulders curled, looking down. His phone screen illuminates his face in the growing darkness.

“Hey.” Towada leans against the wall next to him. “Nice of you to drop in today.”

“It was fun,” Akki says. “Maybe I’ll do it again sometime—if that’s okay with you, that is!”

“Why would that not be okay with me,” Towada says. “Wait, don’t answer that.” He hovers for a moment, his brain full of involuntary calculations about how close he can sit without either making it weird or giving himself a heart attack. “Come by anytime,” he says. He sits, one handsbreadth away. Definitely too far, and also way too close. Having a crush is _bullshit_.

“Thanks,” Akki says. He goes quiet again for a moment. “I wasn’t planning to come in,” he says finally. “Just to look for a minute, see everyone again. I needed a distraction,” he admits.

“From?” Towada prompts.

Akki’s shoulders tense up, and then come down slowly. “College applications are due soon,” he says. “I’ve been going a little nuts, maybe. Right now things are,” he gestures vaguely out at the falling night, “a _lot_.”

“You’re gonna be fine,” Towada says. “You’re—you’re smart and you can handle stuff, even if you do freak out the whole time. You might go a little nuts but you’ll be fine.”

“Huh?” Akki laughs, tilting toward him. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Towada says, “I’m not very comforting.”

The locker room door slams, and feet crunch in the gravel. Towada looks again at where they are, sitting together in the dark while everyone gets ready to go home. A voice in his head goes, _What if he came because he wanted to see you?_

“You’ll be _fine_,” he says again, forcefully. Maybe too forcefully.

“Okay, easy, easy,” Akki says, holding his hands up. His shoulders relax, and when he smiles it looks pretty much real. “I believe you.”

“You better,” Towada says darkly, crossing his arms. “I changed my mind, I’m comforting as hell.”

“Look at you go,” Akki says dryly. “I feel better already.”

“But seriously,” Towada says. “If you get tired of all the big stuff, come by and knock heads with us idiots for a while. Nothing’ll take your mind off it faster than watching someone try to strangle Oyasu.”

Akki leans over and bumps his shoulder. Towada sits ramrod straight because if he doesn’t he’ll lean right back, and probably say something he can’t recover from.

“This is kinda weird, right?” Akki says.

“Wh,” Towada says. “What.”

“When I first met you guys, it took me long enough to get used to the idea that we could play together,” Akki says. “Even then, I didn’t think we’d end up being friends.”

“Um,” Towada says.

“But it just kind of happened, I guess,” Akki says. He grins. “I’m glad it did. I’m glad I got to know you.”

A gasket blows somewhere in Towada’s brain, probably off the tank marked Dumbass Feelings. He sits there frozen while they flood out, filling the inside of his head. “You sound like you’re dying,” he manages. “Jeez, it’s not like this is all the time we have or something.”

It’s hard to tell in the light of the lamps on the school building, but Akki looks red all of a sudden. He clears his throat. “That so?” he says. “You’re gonna stick around, is that what you’re saying?”

“Damn right,” Towada says. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

Akki’s definitely blushing now. He ducks his head, fingers curling around the edge of the bench. “Good,” he says. “I’m glad about that too.”

They sit there in silence for another minute, until a breeze makes Towada shiver. The sweat’s dried on his skin and now he feels all gross and sticky.

“It’s late,” Akki says, standing. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“I better get changed,” Towada says at the same time. “You, uh—I’ll see you.”

“Good night,” Akki says. He shoulders his bag and gives a little wave. “And yeah, you will.”

Towada needs a pressure valve installed in his brain, he decides on the bus ride home. His feelings are leaking out and dripping all over the place, mixing together, letting off sparks and probably poisonous gases. He doesn’t know what the fuck _I’m glad I got to know you _means. Words don’t make sense any more—is that something you say to someone you’re just friends with? Or is it really, really not?

“Aah, fuck,” he groans, leaning back over the bus seat with his hands over his eyes. The old lady across the aisle gives him a dirty look.

Towada’s good at compartmentalizing. Bundling his feelings up and shoving them back into the dirty shoe locker of his soul is easy by now. It’s logical: life is a lot more comfortable when you don’t think uncomfortable thoughts. But what he feels when Akki sits close and smiles at him—that’s like trying to bundle up a wind gust or a wave. He can’t get a grip on it. It washes over him instead.

And if he lets it, it feels good. But he’s afraid to let it.

_Why?_ says the little voice in the back of his head. When he gets off the bus, he still doesn’t have an answer for that one.

Over the next couple of weeks, the weather turns cold. Second term is almost over, and Akki drops by Towada’s house a couple times to help him with his final essay. At least, that’s how they start, but they usually end up raiding the kitchen and bringing armfuls of snacks to the kotatsu downstairs. They show each other videos and help Shoujirou beat Dual Blade Reckoning, and Akki demonstrates his ability to throw food into people’s mouths with freaky pinpoint accuracy. They start testing the limits of that one right away, but they have to give up after Towada’s mom comes into the room and sees Akki hanging upside down over the back of a chair throwing spicy rice crackers at Towada’s face.

Every so often Akki will get close or his face will light up a certain way and Towada will lose his whole damn mind for a couple seconds. He manages not to do anything embarrassing, but it’s a close thing.

“I don’t think I have time to come over again before your essay’s due,” Akki says one day, after they’ve finished helping Shoujirou with the demon king boss fight, which is insanely tricky. “I’m going to be away for most of winter break, so I have to be ready. Bring it by during lunch if you want to, though.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Towada says.

“Tokyo,” Akki says, with a weird twist to his mouth that means he doesn’t quite believe it either. “My uncle invited me down to stay with him and visit a couple universities there. Just—you know, get the lay of the land before I leave for real.”

“For real,” Towada echoes. All of a sudden he really wants to be beating up monsters in Dual Blade Reckoning. The demon king won’t stand a chance against the hot tight feeling suddenly welling up in his chest.

“But—but that’s not for a while!” Akki says hurriedly. “I’ll be back a few days before break ends. It’s not that long.”

“Right,” Towada manages. “Sounds fun. Have fun.”

Akki just _looks_ at him, and his expression is—weird. Breakable. Expectant. The moment stretches until he realizes Towada’s not going to say anything else, and he breaks eye contact and looks down at the table.

They sit in silence for probably the worst forty-five seconds of Towada’s life. Towada tries to get the words out but they won’t come. _I’ll miss you._

“Yeah,” Akki says finally. “Thanks.”

As it turns out, the price he pays for not saying it then is that the words never leave his head. At practice: _I miss you._ Looking at his passing essay grade: _I miss you_. Putting up a new net in the back yard: _I miss you_. Akki texts him most nights, telling him about restaurants he went to or the best features of so-and-so school’s campus, and Towada types, _Wish you were here to tell me in person_. Then he deletes it, because he’s been a wuss when it counts for so long and really, what’s a little more?

Without school to work around, volleyball practices run longer, and even with the normal amount of dicking around, Towada gets the sense that the guys are fired up. They’re thinking of the tournament they’re not in—he gets it. He’s thinking about that too. In the past couple months it’s gotten easier to take the team’s temperature as a whole, tell what they’re feeling and how to point them in the right direction without actually grabbing the nearest two players and knocking their heads together. Not that he doesn’t need to do that sometimes too.

During individual practice time in the first week of break, Towada’s spiking into a blocking net, Yokote just behind him to keep the ball from hitting the floor. He sees Natsuse standing alone by the back net, staring at the ball in his hands. When he finally gets moving it’s to set up empty bottles parallel to the net in the left and right corners. He tosses fast and neat, aiming for the lefthand bottle—and missing pretty badly. The first time, the second time, the fifth time—getting faster and faster. He seems like he’s in the zone, or at least _a_ zone, so Towada leaves him alone for the time being.

At the break, he shakes a packet of energy drink mix into yet another spare bottle and fills it up. It’s the weird green one, but that’s what the first-year likes, so. He takes a swig from his own bottle (the red mix, like a normal person) and drops onto the bench next to Natsuse.

“Here,” he says, presenting his offering. “Hydrate.”

Natsuse squints, and takes the bottle. “Thanks, senpai,” he says. “That’s actually pretty nice of you.”

“Hey, what’s with that ‘actually,’” Towada says.

“Slip of the tongue,” Natsuse says, smiling. He is, as far as Towada knows, one of those guys teachers recommend for things and old people pat on the head and give candy to. But on the court he’s not exactly a pleasure to have in class. On the day Natsuse handed Coach Nino his registration form, Tazawa rolled up to try to glare him into submission with that look that’s usually guaranteed to make first-years wet their pants.

Natsuse took one look at him and said, “Are you all right, senpai? I’ve heard you can get food poisoning from the cafeteria croquettes. Do you want me to walk you to the nurse?”

Oyasu and Karamatsu had busted out laughing, and Moritake had even kind of smirked, and Natsuse had just kept looking at Tazawa with big-eyed, earnest concern on his face. Until Coach had turned away, at which point all the innocence went out of his expression, leaving something bright and uncompromising behind. He stuck a hand out to shake.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and Tazawa was so surprised he took it. “Let’s get along, okay?”

Natsuse gets good grades and opens doors for people and still somehow manages to be completely unfuckwithable, in this way that suggests he’s just one really bad day away from a fistfight. Which Towada would pay actual money to see, but, not the point.

“Akki-kun will be back,” he tells Natsuse. “Probably not for a little bit, but he’ll be back. In the meantime you better let us know what you need help with, okay?”

“I don’t want to take up too much of his time,” Natsuse says, the picture of a good kouhai. But there’s tension at the corners of his eyes, and the bland everything’s-fine smile doesn’t match.

“You worry about that when he does show up,” Towada says. “But the rest of the time, when you need help? Ask.”

“If it’s okay for me to say so, my basics aren’t that bad,” Natsuse says flatly.

“Hey, hold it, I’m trying to make conversation here,” Towada says. “Calm the hell down. I just mean that we’re here to help, and you don’t have to do—that thing you’re doing.”

Natsuse tilts his head a little. He looks pissed, but he’s still smiling in a tense sort of way. “What am I doing?” he says.

Towada looks at him for a minute. It occurs to him, not for the first time, that sometimes Natsuse is the hardest person on the team to get through to. The rest of them are weird in ways he understands. “We all know you can hold your own on the court with these guys,” he says finally. “You don’t have to prove that.”

Natsuse narrows his eyes, spinning his bottle cap between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m the most experienced setter we have,” he says.

“Yeah, and we’re damn lucky we have you,” Towada says.

“There is no one ahead of me to show me the way,” Natsuse says fiercely, and his voice shakes a little. He snaps the cap back on the bottle. “If I want to get better, I have to do that myself.”

“Didn’t I _just_ say Akki-kun would be back.”

“That’s not the same and you know it,” Natsuse snaps. “Senpai.”

“Yeah,” Towada says. “Yeah, it’s not. And it sucks. But that doesn’t mean you have to stand over in the corner by yourself and toss until you go nuts either. There’s books, there’s videos. You think of something you want to try, get one of us to help you. Coach’ll get us practice matches and you can meet some other setters and pick their brains.”

Natsuse doesn’t say anything for a while. Towada drinks his drink. “You’re smarter than half the guys in here anyway,” he says. “You could probably teach them a thing or two.”

Oh,” Natsuse says quietly, looking out across the gym. “I don’t know about that.”

When he gets up he’s got his polite face on again. And it’s hard to tell what’s going on underneath, but he looks a little less tense. Towada figures he’d better end this captain-style, but he’s not sure how to do that so he pats Natsuse on the shoulder a little too hard and says, “You’re gonna be fine!”

Natsuse’s head swings around. “Why did you say it like that?” he says, and for a second he looks genuinely thrown. Towada immediately starts to feel better. “You should use your normal voice or people are going to get freaked out.”

“You little— ” Towada growls.

“Yeah, that one,” Natsuse says, and grins.

Towada’s not sure he got through to Natsuse until a few practices later, when he spots him pulling Moritake aside to stand on the opposite side of the net and critique his dump shots. Towada keeps practicing block follow-ups with Yokote, who drags him into it at every opportunity.

They get better. There’s still a lot more left to do, and time’s still rushing away like water down a drain, but they get better.

One night Akki texts Towada a selfie on a lantern-lit street. It looks like a tourist spot, old-school and narrow with a couple neon izakaya signs poking out of alley entrances and tiny doorways. A couple minutes after that, there’s a picture he has to stare at for a for a second to understand: it’s the view from directly under a giant red archway. Painted carvings and a huge red lantern float in the darkness overhead. _**Kaminarimon!!**__,_ the caption says.

_The hell are you doing out so late anyway_, Towada sends. He sits up in bed and pulls his knees to his chest.

_ **Tourist stuff, obviously!** _

_It’s like midnight, you’re going to get mugged._

_**No need to worry about me,**_ Akki writes. _**Let’s see what my fortune says.**_

The next picture is a shaky sideways view of the big fortune-telling stall that must be inside the Kaminari Gate, on the grounds of the temple it guards. Rows and rows of polished wooden drawers, shining faintly in the light of streetlamps that are just out of frame. It must be cold there. He imagines Akki standing by himself in that half-light, holding his phone up with cold fingers, his breath coming in clouds.

Wanting rolls over him so hard it’s like getting hit by a wave at the beach, ducked under with no air left to breathe. _I miss you._

_How’s your luck?_ he writes.

The next picture is of Akki’s hand, holding a wrinkled paper omikuji up to the light. At the top, Towada can just make out NO. 42 BAD FORTUNE.

_**Apparently my business **__**ventures will lose money**__** and the opportunity I’m waiting for will never come! **_That last one is followed up by a shocked emoji.

_Good now go back inside, I’m not kidding. WHY are you still out, _Towada responds.

It’s a long couple minutes before Akki says anything. _**Walking around at night helps clear my head, **he writes.** Although maybe with this fortune I should give it up and go back in.**_

Another long pause. Towada realizes he’s getting a leg cramp. He mashes his pillow into a more comfortable shape and lies back down again, holding his phone overhead.

_**Sometimes I can’t stop wondering if the future’s gonna turn out okay,**_ Akki says finally. _**Y****ou know, if I made the right choices? Whether the choices I can make have any bearing on the future at all?**_

_ **Usually I’m fine but one day out of ten I go nuts trying to figure it out. Usually late at night. ** _

_ **Sorry to bug you. You’re probably trying to sleep.** _

Towada drops his phone on his face. When he’s done swearing and he’s mostly sure his nose isn’t broken, he sits bolt upright and starts typing. When he’s done typing he holds down the delete key for eight seconds straight. Then he starts typing again.

_I have this friend who keeps telling me __things are__ gonna be fine, _he writes. _And__ if that’s true for me it’s double true for you. If you’re so worried, t__i__e that __shit__ fortune to the fence and get a new one._

_You’re not bugging me._

A long, long pause after that one. Towada shoves his phone under his pillow and sticks his face into the downy center until his whole head feels hot and it’s a little hard to breathe. His phone dings.

_**Thanks for listening.**_ And a little thumbs up.

It hits Towada right then that he might as well be staring at his own omikuji. NO. 1 BAD FORTUNE: YOU’RE AN IDIOT AND THINGS JUST GO ON LIKE THIS FOREVER.

There are a lot of things he’s never done because they would have made him look stupid. But it turns out not doing them is pretty shameful too, which is an idea he’s started getting used to since they lost to Karasuno. Despite not doing the things he’s scared of, there’s a lot that he regrets. It’s all piled up in his chest like old coals from a bonfire, darkened but still hot enough to burn.

If he ever wants Akki to know how he feels, he has to tell him. He has to say it, right out, before they run out of time.

Right now, though, he texts a thumbs up back, shoves his phone into his desk drawer, and lies in bed staring at the ceiling until the birds start singing outside his window.

Morning practice passes in a blur, and he almost eats shit three separate times during warmups because he’s too busy staring into space, trying to figure out how the hell you confess to someone. The movie of his life for some reason refuses to skip forward to the part where they’re reunited and he gives a heartfelt speech that still makes him look cool and steadfast and then Akki—what, falls into his arms or something? He’s a pretty small guy but Towada doesn’t like his chances of catching him, much less spinning him around or some shit. That’s the way you break an ankle.

He’d settle for that smile again. Warm and bright and just for him.

“Earth to Towada,” Karamatsu says, right next to his ear. He jumps, swings out, and reflexively smacks Karamatsu right in the forehead.

“Shit, that was an accident,” Towada says, and the same time Karamatsu says, “_Oi_.”

Karamatsu will share his lunch without being asked, and his games if you’re nice about it, and even pick up some of your chores if he’s bored enough, but if you set him off things can get bad. In their first year he actually didn’t let go of that asshole shortstop until someone dumped cold water on him, and by that time he’d already given the guy a black eye. Towada tries to read his expression without making eye contact.

Karamatsu’s jaw works. But he doesn’t haul off and whack Towada back three times harder, which is the way this usually goes. He reaches up and drops an arm across Towada’s shoulders, pressing down until Towada’s forced to bend level with him. “Don’t...fucking do that,” he says. He’s quiet for a second. Then: “You’re weird lately. What’s with you?”

“Would you believe me if I said I liked someone,” Towada says.

“Nope,” Karamatsu says, and gives his shoulder a hard pat.

“Good,” Towada says. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Cold day in hell,” Karamatsu says.

“Right,” Towada says. “Thanks. Sorry I hit you.”

Karamatsu gives him another pat and releases him. “This time,” he says, “I’ll let you live.”

When Karamatsu’s parents were splitting up he would come over to Towada’s house a lot and they would play video games in silence until his shoulders came down from around his ears. That was almost four years ago now, and he still doesn’t tell anyone anything they don’t need to know.

“It’s Akki-kun,” Towada blurts.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Karamatsu says. “Seriously?”

“If you laugh we _will_ fight,” Towada says.

“If we fight I’ll kick your ass,” Karamatsu says, with total confidence.

“But it’s going to suck,” Towada says. “Think of the cost, man. I take pains to make sure beating me up isn’t any fun.”

“You sure fucking do,” Karamatsu says. He’s speaking from experience; the one time they really fought was near the end of the whole divorce thing, and even though Towada was the one with the nosebleed and the ringing ears his mom made him apologize for bending Karamatsu’s finger back like that. They might actually have been the two worst middle schoolers on the face of the earth.

Karamatsu squints at Towada, hands planted on his hips. “So you’re for real?”

“Yeah,” Towada says. “Really real.”

“You gonna go get him or what?” Karamatsu says.

“Gonna try,” Towada says. Just getting the words out makes him feel big and small at the same time, and like his head’s on fire.

“Do me a favor and never make that face in my direction again,” Karamatsu says. He rubs the back of his head, and offers up one of those lazy, genuine smiles Towada sometimes forgets he’s capable of. “If he says no I’ll treat you to ice cream,” he says.

“Don’t assume he’s gonna say no, you dick,” Towada says. “Also, it’s December.”

But Karamatsu’s already ambling back across the court to get his water, and Moritake and Oyasu are waiting for Towada to join their side for the three-on-three, and there’s no time left to think about it. In its own way that’s a blessing.

Towada doesn’t see Akki again until they’re back at school, and just in passing when he’s hauling ass on the way back from lunch. Akki’s halfway up a flight of stairs, and without thinking Towada starts pushing through the crush of people all leaving the cafeteria. He steps on a couple feet and someone elbows him back, and then Akki’s around the corner and gone.

“Watch it,” says the captain of the baseball team, shoving in front of him. Towada flips him off. From the bottom of the stairs, a teacher goes “Hey, you two had better not—” and starts up the stairs after them. They exchange a look, on the same page for once, and dive into the crowd.

Akki doesn’t drop by practice that afternoon. Towada barely has time to think about it, because they’re playing a practice match with a visiting school, but his brain manages to get it done anyway. There’s too much spinning around inside his head: trajectory and runup, bad fortune, all the words he hasn’t said. Careful hands, smiling mouth. Point of contact. Perfect timing.

“Ah, shit,” he mutters, just before a bad receive bounces off his forearms, hits him in the nose, and flies off toward the landing.

“You okay?” Yokote asks, eyeing him for any sign of injury.

“Fine, fine,” Towada says, his face hot. He waves at the rest of the court. “It’s fine. Come on, let’s just push forward.”

They win the game by six points. Night has mostly fallen by the time they’re changed and ready to go, just a thin band of pink and orange bleeding up from the horizon. Towada turns the lock on the gym door, shuts it behind him, and turns around to see Akki standing in the parking lot.

The others are a few steps ahead, and Towada stands there like an idiot for a few seconds, watching the pack circle in around him for their fist bumps and back slaps and setter secret handshake. It’s almost too far away to tell, but he knows Akki’s smiling like a light in the dark. He heads forward.

“Ah, Towada-kun!” Akki says, catching sight of him. “Hey!”

“Hey,” Towada says. And then he forgets all the other words he knows, because that’s just how his life is going these days. When he fails to say anything else, Akki’s left eyebrow goes up a tiny bit and he gives a bemused smile.

“Practice went well, huh?” he says. “You guys are in a good mood.”

“We kicked Tokonami’s ass,” Tazawa says.

“We lightly touched our foot to their ass,” Yokote says.

“Not in a weird way,” Moritake says.

“It was kind of in a weird way,” Natsuse says. “Most things we do are.”

Akki laughs, and the sound makes Towada feel like his heart’s too big for his chest all of a sudden. It feels like a genuine medical problem, he might actually die—words are crowding on his tongue, and now that he’s decided to say them, not being able to say them right here and now and get it over with is a real goddamn ordeal.

“You guys gonna stand out here all night or what?” he says. “Last I knew, none of you lived in the parking lot.”

“Yeah, let’s get a move on,” Karamatsu says loudly, and grabs Moritake and Oyasu by the sleeves. He starts towing them in the direction of their own southbound bus stop. He only glances back at Towada for a second.

“I think I see my dad’s car,” Natsuse says, and starts heading off too. And the rest of them go, in ones and twos, until it’s just Towada and Akki standing in the pool of light cast by the nearest streetlamp.

“My tutoring hours ran late,” Akki says. “I thought I’d catch you on the way out.” He tilts his head toward the road. “Walk you to the bus stop?”

So they walk, their breath coming in clouds on the chilly air. The pink and orange fade, and the world turns dark blue and quiet around them. The air is sharp and clear. It feels like it might snow soon.

“So,” Towada says, “how was Tokyo?”

“Good!” Akki says. “It was good. I had fun, and I feel—I don’t know, like I can imagine the future a little more clearly now.”

“I missed you,” Towada says. Akki’s footsteps crunch to a halt. The bus shelter is a short ways ahead of them, shining in its own little circle of light.

“O—oh?” Akki says. “I, uh. I missed you too. Even though it wasn’t that long. Um, I thought maybe I was texting you too much, so sorry if it came off as weird or whatever, I just felt overwhelmed for a little while there because I couldn’t stop thinking about how everything is going to change and I—”

Towada steps close to him. “Jeez, calm down,” he says. “It’s just me.”

Akki smiles a weird private smile. “Of course. Just you,” he murmurs. Towada doesn’t have anywhere near the mental bandwidth to start dealing with _that_, so he forges ahead.

“Look,” he says. “When you were at the temple getting your dumb fortune at ass o’clock of the night, and we were talking—I meant what I said. You have what it takes to deal with all this future stuff. I mean, look how many times you stopped Oyasu and Tazawa from killing each other.”

“I never could stop them from trying again,” Akki protests.

“It made them respect you, though,” Towada says. “Kinda did that for all of us.”

Akki’s face gets this pinched look. He glances down the street toward the bus stop, his lips pressed in a tight line. “Ah, yeah,” he says. “Respect. That’s—yeah.”

Sensors in Towada’s brain that he didn’t know he had are setting off klaxons he also didn’t know he had, and before he can stop himself he’s even closer, a hand on Akki’s shoulder, pulling him around so they’re face to face. “Not just respect,” he says. “I meant what I said, but I didn’t—I didn’t say what I meant. Not everything.”

Akki’s mouth opens, just a little.

“I missed you every damn day you were gone,” Towada says. “I think you’re amazing. You’re really smart, and you’re strong in all these weird ways that people don’t know they need until you’re right there holding them up. And I know that you’re not gonna be around here forever but I like you, I’ve liked you for a long time, and just—wanted you to know that.” He swallows hard. “I really think you could do anything you wanted to,” he says.

As speeches go, the movie version of his life would have done it better. But Towada’s officially out of words, and his face is burning and his ears are burning and Akki’s looking up at him in what he thinks—yeah—what he’s pretty sure is wonder.

A long moment goes by.

Akki reaches up and brushes his fingers against Towada’s cheek. When Towada doesn't move, he draws his hand down, fingers trailing, and rests the pad of his thumb against Towada’s bottom lip. He smiles one of those smiles that somehow manages to say _trouble_ and _everything’s good_ all at the same time, and at point-blank range it’s a shot straight to Towada’s heart.

“What if I wanted to do this?” he says.

“Like I said,” Towada manages. “Anything.”

Akki reels him in by the collar of his coat and kisses him. Towada doesn’t believe in perfect, but this is a pretty damn sound argument, even though he’s sweat-sticky from practice and their lips and noses are cold from the winter air.

Cold isn’t a problem for much longer after that, though.

When they pull away, Akki blinks up at him like he’s the bright light. “Oh, hey,” he says dizzily. “My fortune came true.”

“Your business ventures?” Towada says, bewildered.

“No—” Akki digs in his pocket and comes up with a creased, worn slip of paper: another omikuji.

NO. 18 GOOD FORTUNE: _The love you have waited for will make itself known to you. Your next journey is sure to meet with fulfillment, and your crops will yield a bountiful harvest._

“Huh,” Towada says. “Would you look at that.”

“Well, I had to pull three more to get this one,” Akki says. “But it worked out in the end.”

“Thank goodness about your crops,” Towada says. “Apparently they grow in the middle of winter, that’s pretty impressive.”

Akki bumps their shoulders together, and when he laughs, it’s clear and bright and tender. “Don’t underestimate me,” he says. “It turns out a lot of things are possible.”

**Author's Note:**

> (and then Towada missed the bus and had to phone his mom to come get him, the end)
> 
> I thought I'd write a couple scenes for these two, just to see if I could give myself feelings about it. I thought I could probably turn out a little 3k thing, just for kicks.
> 
> ...anyway, I sure dug myself a deep hole here. you're cordially invited to jump down with me


End file.
